Dietary spermidine intake and associations with biomarkers in the United States population: NHANES 2017-2020

Background: Spermidine, a naturally occurring polyamine found in foods, has been associated with health benefits in numerous studies. Accurate spermidine intake amounts in the US population are unreported and the relationship between dietary spermidine intake and health status is unclear. Objective: Using the pre-pandemic National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2017-March 2020 database we assessed spermidine intake levels in a large representative US population of adults aged ≥18 and probed associations between dietary spermidine intake, prescription medication and dietary supplement use, and 18 biomarkers including important cardiovascular markers. Methods: Dietary spermidine content for individual foods or food type was determined based on prior published work, then segmented by query of the NHANES database and categorized into tertiles. Associations were assessed between spermidine intake tertiles and any prescription medication use in the past 30 days with 18 biomarkers. Results: In this cycle of NHANES (n=8965 adults) over 75% of the population reported consuming foods containing spermidine with intake amounts ranging widely from 0.003 to 202.9 mg/day. Medication use increased with age, and with lower spermidine intake only in the young less medicated age group (18-39 years; p=0.044). Lower anti-hypertensive medication use was associated with higher spermidine intake (p=0.029). In addition, progressive and significant associations between higher spermidine intake and lower serum triglyceride and albumin creatinine ratio were noted (p<0.001). Conclusions: Dietary spermidine intake is common in the US population but has a wide range and is not normally distributed. Significant associations were found between lower levels of cardiovascular risk markers (triglycerides, albumin creatinine ratio), and reduced cardiovascular medication use with higher spermidine dietary intake (median 15.8 mg/day). These findings concur with, and suggest a possible explanation for, published reports demonstrating that higher dietary intake of spermidine may be related to maintaining cardiovascular health and reduction of cardiovascular disease risk. Funding for this study was provided by Chrysea Labs Lda 3060-197, Cantanhede, Portugal This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2025 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.